Tuesday, November 06, 2012

The swing state in this election could be the 12,500 students living on campus.

After what seems like years watching commentary on this presidential campaign, my head is about to explode after hearing about how this state would break down and that state would break down.
One guy says Romney is going to win in a landslide.
I've heard one "comfortable" Obama win prediction.
Most guys say it's going to be close either way.
I have no idea who is going to win.
I'll find out around midnight, unless there's a state out there that still uses punch cards.
Right now, I can be certain of two things.
I'm voting for Temple football on Saturday and, sadly, I don't think there is going to be a big turnout of people voting with their feet like me.
I'm not an expert on politics, but I do consider myself an expert on Temple's fragile fan base.
I'm often able to predict the Temple crowd, almost down to a person.
For the Homecoming Game against South Florida, I predicted 26K and Temple drew 25,896.
For the Rutgers' game, I predicted 41K but I had to smack the upside of my head for not factoring in the "over-the-air" free TV hit of between 5-10K Temple takes. Facts show that when Temple is on live TV, it takes a huge hit somewhere in that general ballpark figure.

You can't call yourself a BCS team and throw the ball only 10 times in a 45-17 loss. That tells your fan base either you a) gave up or b) have Stevie Wonder calling the plays

Rutgers took care of its end of the bargain, bringing at least 15K. (To be fair, RU was 6-0 and Temple 3-2.) Temple must have brought no more than 20K, meaning at least 6K fans stayed home and watched on TV.
This week, probably more unfortunately than other weeks, the game is on TV.
Students have come out in big numbers in the past. There were 12K students for the Villanova game, but that was at night when they did not have to set their alarms after a Friday of partying. When I went to Temple, I had no problem setting my alarm for noon games so I never understood that reasoning.
The Temple students could be the swing part of this election, but they came up lame against Maryland and Rutgers so I don't expect they'll suddenly, err, wake up.
I've always said this:
Temple has a hardcore fan base of 15-17K who will show up no matter what.
It also has a "softcore" fan base of between 20-30K who need a reason to believe.
Thirty years of football futility lost that secondary fan base and it's going to take more than three or four years of good football to bring it back.
Three weeks of Gosh-awful football have lost that softcore base for this season.
In a way, I can't blame them.
You can't call yourself a BCS team and throw the ball only 10 times in a 45-17 loss. That tells your fan base either you a) gave up or b) have Stevie Wonder calling the plays.
I expect the 17K to show up on Saturday, but no more.
It might be as low as 15K, which would put it in the same neighborhood as the Penn vs. Harvard Ivy League football championship game being played at the same time across town.
I do know this: There are 270K Temple alumni, 130K living within an hour's drive of Lincoln Financial Field and 39K students, 12.5K living within a 10-minute subway ride of LFF.
That's a lot of potential voters out there.
I'm voting for Temple but only because I'm a Temple football junkie and I need my fix.
Someday, hopefully soon, there will be a lot more Temple people who use Saturdays in the fall to cast a vote for their school.

6 comments:

CC replaced CS last year and steadied the ship..., Newsome will replace CC this year because he is the better athlete, and better at the position...., however results will not be immediate..., CC was effective last year because those who surrounded him are now playing in the NFL...., AG's biggest strength was in 'developing talent', everything else he was average, or slightly above average...., DAZ is strong at what?.., a bowl game for us this year is important, it will give our young players another month of practice.., if we don't beat Cincy look for DAZ to play freshman and sophmores exclusively in the remaining games

Would have LOVED to seen Kevin Newsome throw after he ripped off that 44-yard run.Ridiculous to me that the Owls weren't passing their asses off (if just for practice) in the fourth quarter.Just like the Doner Psss was the way to the Gold Rush for many early settlers, the forward pass is the only way Temple's getting to a bowl game.Got to spread the ball all over the field first, THEN go back to the run.If they don't respect your ability throw, they are going to have 8 in the box and that's the quickest way to finish the season with a whole lot of 47-17 and 45-17 losses.

great point..., we are struggling among three teams: the team Daz wants us to be, the team we really are, and the team we need to be on each Saturday to win the game. Daz accepted the team he had last year and Heater coached a defense to win the game... This year Daz is stuck on stupid in the space between what he wants and what he has..., all at the expense of preparing a team to win the next game..,

hey Mike, you coach the O and i'll coach the D next year..., we can hire a top notch recruiter, take us to a bowl win and call it a season...i hope somebody in the AD's office is reading this!

I have total confidence in Heater. I think his problems stem from Johnson and Custis being suspended.Those two guys, while not getting sacks, really collapsed the pocket against Nova and helped Youboty and Brown get some sacks and pressure the Nova QB into INTs, one returned by Carraway for six.I really thought that was the way the season defensively was going to go.But it's obvious we have real problems on the back line when we're not getting a pass rush and the only way we get a pass rush is to manufacture it with the LBs and safeties.(Look at the turnover B.J. Daniels had. That was a corner blitz by Tavon Young and Nate D. Smith ripping the ball out.)That's a risky defense because if you don't get there, you are vulnerable to the screen.I'd say put the LBs out there and use only 3 down linemen. Our LBs are our best defensive athletes.

Hard to watch this team. They are lacking on both sides of the ball. I really think if they win one more game this year the season isn't a total disaster. If anyone thinks Army or Hawaii aren't viewing the owls as a potential easy game I don't think you're paying attention. I do think every team they face after this week is a winnable game but its going to test the owls resolve.

If their young guys are learning this season they should be well seasoned for the stretch run. However, I'm concerned the kids will be tired and disheartened. Go Daz and go Owls. I want to believe.

The most disheartening thing about this team is that they are not playing with the verve and the pluck and the fight, whatever you want to call it, that they played in the UConn and USF games with.Virtually the same players are out there, too.i think looking up at the scoreboard is beating them down.Team doesn't seem to be improving, at least on the scoreboard.yet up in West point, Army is on the upward curve.Seems to me it would be more logical that the younger team (Temple) would be making the faster progress but this season has been anything but logical.Stubborn refusal to throw the ball and make defenses defend the entire field combined with zero pass rush is why this thing has turned downward.i hope we turn it around quick and find the UConn/USF mojo.

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A big-time Temple football fan and award-winning journalist, one Keystone and three APSE writing awards in best feature, news story and sports column categories, who became a Temple fan as a kid watching the Owls rip off 14 straight football wins.